CARMEN XVII. It may entertain the reader to know that a treatise was once written on the subject of Horace's Tyndaris, in which it was proved to the satisfaction of the writer that she was a freedwoman of Rhaemetalces, king of Thrace; that she is the person Horace elsewhere speaks of as Thressa Chloë, simply Chloë, and Venus Marina; also that she was a poetess. It being assumed that the last ode was addressed to Tyndaris, according to the common inscriptions, it is supposed by many that the lovers had made up their quarrel, and that Horace here proposes a meeting to seal their reconciliation. All this which is plainly unreasonable should be put aside by any who wish to understand Horace. There is no connexion between the two odes, except that the title, which belongs to this, has been borrowed for the other, and there is no reason to suppose that Horace, writing at his farm, had any other than an imaginary Tyndaris, with an imaginary Cyrus, in his mind. ARGUMENT. Tyndaris, often doth Pan leave Lycaeus to visit Lucretilis, protecting my flocks from sun and wind; my goats go unharmed and fear not snake or wolf when his sweet pipe sounds in the vale of Ustica. The gods love me for my piety and my muse. Here Plenty awaits thee; here shalt thou retire from the heat and sing of the loves of Penelope and Circe for Ulysses. Here thou shalt quaff mild Lesbian in the shade, nor shall strife be mingled with the cup, nor shalt thou fear the jealous Cyrus, lest he lay his violent hand upon thee. VELOX amoenum saepe Lucretilem Mutat Lycaeo Faunus et igneam Usque meis pluviosque ventos. Nec virides metuunt colubras 1. Lucretilem] Mons Lucretilis' is identified by De Chaupy and others with the lofty mountain (or range) called Monte Gennaro, that overhangs the valley of the Licenza-Horace's Digentia (Epp. i. 18. 104), in which his estate lay. De Chaupy gives a very agreeable account of the scenery, to show that it was "un séjour plein d'attraits pour le Dieu Pan," a place to which Faunus might well resort from his Arcadian home Lycaeus. Ustica, the Scholiasts say, was a mountain or a mountain and valley. Acron favours the latter, interpreting 'cubantis' by 'depressae.' Porphyrion, on the other hand, and Comm. Cruq. refer the epithet ad resupinam regionem ejus.' De Chaupy, who illustrates personuere saxa' by the echoes he himself heard on the spot, which he identifies with Horace's estate, and the bare rocks that 5 here and there show themselves, thinks he can also fix upon this spot Ustica on the slope of the hills, and he therefore does not allow Acron's interpretation of cubantis.' The construction with muto,' 'permuto,' by which the remoter object becomes the nearer, is not peculiar to Horace, and it occurs several times in his works. Virg. Georg. i. 8: "Chaoniam pingui glandem mutavit arista." ̓Αλλάσσειν, ἀμείβειν also admit of this double construction, sometimes the thing given in exchange being in the accusative, sometimes the thing taken. See Heindorf on S. ii. 7. 110. [3. Defendit aestatem] Comp. Sat. i. 3. 14, and Virg. Eclog. vii. 47: "solstitium pecori defendite.'] 7. Olentis uxores mariti] See Georg. iii. 325, "Quem legere ducem et pecori Utcunque dulci, Tyndari, fistula Valles et Usticae cubantis Levia personuere saxa. Di me tuentur, dis pietas mea Ruris honorum opulenta cornu. Penelopen vitreamque Circen; dixere maritum." Theoc. viii. 49, & paye "Ita rex placare sacrorum Numina lanigerae conjuge debet ovis." 9. Nec Martiales Haediliae lupos] 'Haediliae' is the reading of nearly every MS., and in the margin of B, Orelli says, is written mons,' and so he and Dillenbr. understand it-one of the Sabine hills. 'Haedilia,' the reading of some MSS., and most of the old editions, is only a corruption of the other. Bentley takes to himself the credit of suggesting 'haeduleae,' formed from haedus,' as equuleae,' hinnuleae,' from 'equus' and 'hinnus.' But Auratus and Torrentius had anticipated his conjecture, though they thought only of the masculine 'haedulei.' 'Haeduleae' has been very generally adopted since Bentley. Gesner says this reading 'haeduleae occurs in bonis libris:' but he does not mention which they are, and Bentley had never seen them, or he would have mentioned that he had done so. 'Haediliae Lambinus and some others prefer, as signifying the folds,' but no such word is found elsewhere, and there is no analogy to support it. If there were such a word, the antepenultimate syllable would be long, as in 'ovile.' 14. Hic tibi copia] The order of the words is hic copia opulenta ruris honorum manabit ad plenum tibi benigno cornu.' 'Here plenty, rich in the glories of the country, shall pour herself out for thee abundantly from her generous horn.' 'Ad plenum' occurs in the same sense Georg. ii. 244 :— "Huc ager ille malus dulcesque a fontibus undae Ad plenum calcentur." The cornu copiae,' so common in ancient works of art, was a symbol belonging to the goddess Fortuna, to whom it is said to have been presented by Hercules. It was supposed originally to have been the horn of Amalthea, which Hercules won from Achelous. [17. reducta] 'retired,' 'solitary,' as in Epod. ii. 13, and Georg. iv. 420. Remotus' has a like meaning in C. ii. 19. 1.] 18. fide Teia] "Perhaps," says Torrentius, “Anacreon had a song upon the subject, for to talk of adapting the Odyssey of Homer to the lyre of Anacreon is absurd." Horace had some reason for choosing this subject, but who shall say what it was? Why Circe is called 'vitrea' has been much disputed. Smart and Francis translate the word 'frail.' Dacier refers it to her complexion, "qui était uni comme une glace." It probably means, as Turnebus says, no more than caerula' in Epod. xiii. 16: "nec mater domum caerula te revehet;" and virides' in Ov. Tr. i. 2. 59: "Pro superi viridesque Dei quibus aequora curae." 19. laborantes in uno] See Argument. 22. Semeleïus-Thyoneus] Bacchus is here called by both the names of his mother Semele, who was also named Thyone, ånd To Oveш. 25. male dispari] Male' is here used as in S. i. 3. 31, "Male laxus calceus;" and Incontinentes injiciat manus Et scindat haerentem coronam 45, "male parvus." Cyrus was not fortunate in his amours, if we are to believe Dacier, who tells us with as much confidence as if he had written the odes himself, "c'est le même dont il est parlé dans l'ode 33, et qu' Horace appelle turpis,' laid, vilain." CARMEN XVIII. There is preserved in Athenaeus, x. p. 430, a single line of Alcaeus, of which the first verse of this ode is almost a literal translation. The metre also is the same. The verse is as follows (44 Bergk): μηθὲν ἄλλο φυτεύσῃς πρότερον δένδρεον ἀμπέλω. The rest of the ode is, in all probability, a close adaptation of the poem of Alcaeus. If we were not put upon the right scent, as I think we are, by the above fragment, we should suppose Horace had a friend Varus, who had a villa at Tibur, and who was making a plantation there. Varus was the cognomen of his and Virgil's friend Quintilius, whose death is lamented in C. xxiv. of this book. But whether or no he is the person here referred to, or (which appears to Buttmann, and I agree with him, the better way of putting it) whose name is used for the purpose of giving spirit to the ode, it is quite impossible to say. "Sterilem agrum frustra rimeris," as Franke judiciously says on another equally impossible question. It has been doubted whether Horace wrote 'Vare' or 'vere,' in consequence of a note which appears in the two Scholiasts, Acron and Comm. Cruq., "suadet ut cum vernum competens tempus est nullam arborem prius quam vitem ponat," from which it has been inferred that they had 'vere' in their copies. Some confirmation of this theory is derived from Virg. Georg. ii. 319 sq.: : 'Optima vinetis satio cum vere rubenti All existing MSS. and editions have Vare.' Jahn affirms that the person is haud dubie,' the same as Canidia's old lover, Epod. v., and Weichert (de L. Varii et Cassii Parmensis vita) says the same. Such boldness appears to me most irrational. The respectable names of these scholars have misled the writer of the article Varus (xii.) in Smith's Dict. Biog., who might have corrected his judgment by referring to Estré, to whose work he refers others. Torrentius believes the person to be that unfortunate Varus whose legions were cut off by Arminius in Germany, A.D. 10. But as he supposes Catullus to have addressed the same person (C. x.), who was his junior by at least half a century, his judgment is worth nothing. Other conjectures have been hazarded by scholars of repute, which Estré has stated and disposed of very clearly. "Of Quintilius' Villa ruins yet remain at Tivoli in the quarter called after him Quintigliolo," says Fea, a credulous but industrious commentator. ARGUMENT. The vine is the first tree thou shouldst plant, Varus, by the walls of Tibur. Hardships are only for the sober, wine drives away all cares. Who croaks of battles and poverty rather than of Bacchus and Venus, when he is mellow? But that no man exceed, let him think of the bloody frays of the Centaurs, and Lapithae, and of the Thracians, T over their cups, when the appetite confounds right and wrong. I'll not arouse thee unbidden, beautiful Bassareus, nor drag thy mysteries from their secret places. Silence the horn and drum, whose followers are vain glory and broken faith. NULLAM, Vare, sacra vite prius severis arborem 10 Quis post vina gravem militiam aut pauperiem crepat? 5 [1. Nullam-severis] Comp. C. i. 11, "Tu ne quaesieris."] 2. Tiburis et moenia Catili] ev dià dvoiy. See C. i. 7. 13 n. Horace shortens the penultimate syllable of Catillus' name, and the same liberty is taken with the name of Porsenna, Epod. xvi. 4 n. 8. super mero] It is disputed whether this means 'over their wine,' or 'about their wine.' ['Super' with an ablative case may mean above,' as in C. iii. 1. 17, or 'upon,' as in Virgil, Ecl. i. 80; but neither meaning will suit this passage. See the Argument. Ritter explains it super mero humi effuso,' and he compares 'super foco,' super Pindo; but the comparison is not appropriate.] At the marriage-feast of Peirithous, king of the Lapithae, the Centaurs, being guests, attempted in their drunken ness to carry off the bride Hippodamia and the other women present, which led to a contest, and the Centaurs were beaten. 'Cum' (v. 10) refers to 'super mero,' which applies also to the Sithonians, a people of Thrace, on the borders of Macedonia. The quarrel of Bacchus with the Thracians, on account of Lycurgus' treatment of his vines, and the habitual drunkenness visited upon them, are well known. See C. i. 27. sq., and ii. 19. 16. 15 10. Cum fas atque nefas] When the greedy of wine distinguish between right and wrong by the slender line of their lusts," that is, the slender distinction that lust so inflamed can draw. Avidus' is used absolutely for avidus pugnae,' C. iii. 4. 58. 12. quatiam] This is explained by Aen. iv. 301: 6 'qualis commotis excita sacris Thyias ubi audito stimulant trieterica Baccho Orgia nocturnusque vocat clamore Cithae ron," where Servius in his commentary quotes this passage of Horace. The whole passage is Greek in its character. The Liberalia bore little analogy to the Dionysia, to which the thyrsus and the cista with its sacred contents (whatever they may have been) and its covering of vine and ivy belonged. The picture of vain glory holding high its head, full only of the fumes of debauch, is very happy, whether original or not. The other characteristic of the maudlin state is repeated once or twice. See Epod. xi. 14. S. i. 4. 89. [15. plus nimio] Ritter compares Plautus, Mil. Glor. ii. 6. 104, 'plus multo.'] CARMEN XIX. Glycera (TXUKépa) is one of Horace's favourite names. She is set down as the Cinara of C. iv. 13. 21 (see n.), but with what show of reason, beyond their having the same number of syllables, it is not easy to see. We need not take Horace too much at his word when he says that his days of love were over. Many a young sentimentalist has imagined this and found himself mistaken as the poet appears to have done. Those who choose to insist that Horace is confessing on his own account that "the heyday of his blood was tamed," put this ode rather late, A.U.c. 729 or 730. Others find in the allusion to the Parthian (v. 12) occasion to fix the date a few years later (734 or 735), when the standards of Crassus had been recovered from that troublesome enemy. This important epoch is ever before the minds of one section of the chronologists: "dies noctesque quidam veluti spectris territi cogitassent de signis et captivis a. 734 a Parthis Augusto redditis," says Franke, whose acumen, however, while it has led him on the whole into a more consistent and probable chronological scheme than Kirchner and others, is not above being misled by too much zeal for its own inventions. I should be no more disposed with him to say Horace wrote this ode while the Arabian expedition (i. 29) was pending, than with his adversaries that he wrote it five or six years later. When or under what circumstances or to whom (if any body) he wrote, we must be content to be ignorant. (See C. iv. 1, Introduction.) ARGUMENT. The mother of love, Semele's son, and wantonness recall my heart to love I thought I had put away for ever. I burn for Glycera purer than marble, and that mischievous face so dangerous to look upon. With all her strength hath Venus come upon me, and bids me sing no more of idle themes, the Scythian and the Parthian. Build me an altar, slaves, bring boughs and incense and wine, for I would soften the goddess with a victim. MATER saeva cupidinum Thebanaeque jubet me Semeles puer Finitis animum reddere amoribus. Urit me Glycerae nitor Splendentis Pario marmore purius; Et voltus nimium lubricus adspici. 1. Mater saeva Cupidinum] This verse occurs again C. iv. 1. 5. Catull. iii. 1, "O veneres cupidinesque." The multiplication of the forms of pws was derived from the Greeks by the Romans. 'Semeles' is the form most generally adopted now. The older editions and the great majority of MSS. have Semelae.' But, as before observed, Horace seems to prefer the Greek form in the odes. Semele,' which occurs in some MSS., and in Ven. 1842, is probably intended for the true 5 10 form, and may have led to the other. Duentzer affirms that Horace does not use the genitive in 'es.' Why not the genitive as well as the nominative and accusative? Such assertions have no meaning. 8. lubricus] Forcellini derives this from the verb 'labor.' He quotes this passage, and I have followed his interpretation in the Argument. It is hard to get a word exactly corresponding to lubricus.' [Ritter compares σφαλερός. The English word in the argument is as good as any.] |